On a sunny, warm morning along County Road 400 East next to a Roselawn, Ind. bean field, mason Larry Albanese puts the finishing touches on a large stone monument.
Just a few hundred yards from the road, Flight 4184 crashed to earth on a cold, rainy night.
Albanese remembers hearing about the crash as he was working at his family's candy company.
And now, 20 years later, he places stones with the names of each victim – including its youngest, 4-year-old Patrick Henry of Glenview, Ill.
"You lay these stones, and you know this little boy – you know, 4 years old," Albanese says. "I'm a kid guy, you know. And I've got a little daughter and obviously had a little 4 year old son, who is now thank God grown up but - you know - to lose that innocence."
Patty Henry had taken her two sons and a friend along to Indianapolis for a business trip. Their return flight was overbooked, so they split up. Patty and Patrick waited for the American Eagle flight.
Jennifer Stansberry Miller's brother Brad was on the flight, too.
Miller says her brother was heading back to Germany where he worked as an audio engineer for Delphi Delco. She says Brad had visited her at Purdue University.
"It was a homecoming and alumni weekend," she says. "Our younger brother was a part of the Purdue marching band. He was a snare player so he got to see him do that. He also was able to go to a Halloween party and spend time with his friends back home before the crash."
While in a holding pattern for bad weather as it approached Chicago's O'Hare airport, Flight 4184 hit freezing rain. The plane developed heavy ice and the pilots lost control.
The plane disintegrated on impact. Very few identifiable plane pieces were found. No body was left intact.
Emergency responders – though well intentioned – weren't prepared for a disaster of this size.
In the weeks that followed, Ray Chambers and other firefighters received the grim assignment of recovering human remains. Chambers is now Emergency Management director for Newton County. In 1994, he was a first responder with the Lincoln Township volunteer fire department.
"For us to go out there every day and see that, and trying to put that behind you and go ahead and work every day – that was challenging," Chambers says.
It was equally challenging for the families. Terri Severin of Arlington Heights, Ill. - four-year-old Patrick's aunt - says they had little if any input as to what happened to their loved ones remains and belongings.
"There was a common grave burial that occurred without the family's knowledge or consent," Severin says. "Most of the personal effects were destroyed within weeks of the crash. The crash site wasn't thoroughly cleaned up. I went out there during the preliminary hearing and walked away with plane wreckage and remains that were still scattered about the field."
The families of Flight 4184 joined those from other air tragedies in the mid-1990s and lobbied for improvements to family support after accidents. In the fall of 1996 the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act was passed and signed into law.
Paul Sledzik, director of National Transportation Safety Board's Transportation Disaster Assistance Division, says the law made dramatic and lasting changes in how crash scenes are handled.
"You have the involvement, in a positive way, of the air carrier," he says. "You have the involvement of the Safety Board as kind of a knowledge base of how these accidents unfold and what needs to be done in order to effectively respond to them. And we're able to go out and talk with local jurisdictions about how to work with us and work with the federal partners and the air carrier to ensure the families are getting what they need."
To honor their loved ones and mark the 20th anniversary, Flight 4184 family members have invited first responders and aviation experts to speak in Merillville Thursday about changes to aviation safety and family assistance after accidents.
More than 100 family members will gather at the crash site Friday for a private ceremony dedicating the new stone monument.
